


House Advantage

by clearinghouse



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung, Witching Hill - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Adventure, Blood, Drinking, Gambling, M/M, Possession, Raffles Secret Santa, Romance, Supernatural Elements, Witching Hill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-20 01:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13136616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearinghouse/pseuds/clearinghouse
Summary: As part of the Ham Common crime spree, Raffles singles out a large, lonely estate on Witching Hill for their next adventure. However, the house has a nefarious, supernatural presence that ensnares Raffles in its grip. Naturally, only Bunny can save him.





	1. Capture

**Author's Note:**

> This is my [Raffles Secret Santa](http://rafflessecretsanta.tumblr.com/) gift for [Strewbi](http://strewbi.tumblr.com/), who asked for an AU of some kind. I don't know if this counts as an AU exactly, but I used the supernatural setting of the first of the lovely _Witching Hill_ series of short stories, which were written by Hornung. But don't worry! You don't have to know anything about _Witching Hill_ to enjoy this story. Merry Christmas, Strewbi!

While Raffles and I were in that phase of our joint career when we picked the houses in and around Ham Common like two fastidious children in a cherry orchard, there was one and only one instance when Raffles became like a stranger to me. In that instance, a touch of inexplicable madness came over him. He would be the first to say that he is many-sided, and that he can change disposition as easily as he can change his costume, but the brief, remarkable change in him that I refer to was not the product of a simple turn of mood.

It all began with that society paper, which freely informed busybodies everywhere that the eminently honourable Sir Christopher Stainsby had decided to go away from his splendid estate on Witching Hill. He was to devote himself to some mission trip for some weeks. As he had no family, his home was to be temporarily vacated.

Raffles had long ago marked Witching Hill’s largest house as a possibility for nighttime sport. His plans only wanted that final nail in the metaphorical coffin, which in the case of this particular target was the want of an opportunity to break into the manor’s bedroom outside of daylight hours. This abrupt holiday of Sir Christopher’s was all that was needed and more, or so Raffles glibly told me, after I had given him the paper I’d purchased for him in a city where he could no longer show his handsome, sly, yet aged face. 

I was against this outing from the first. First of all, the target that Raffles was thirsting over was significantly far afield. I was not enthusiastic for the unfamiliar territory, as I was never enthusiastic as Raffles was over the added risks. Nor did I care for the extra exercise. However, what troubled me more was the famously upstanding character of the house’s owner. It may seem an irrational concern on the part of a thief whose human sense of sympathetic decency has been withered to near-death, but it wasn’t human sympathy that moved me. Sir Christopher struck me in a symbolic light. He was a man as pious as he was wealthy, and a widower besides. To pick his house was either to bring bad luck down on us, or at least to severely disappoint all the folk of London who knew and respected the good fellow.

My position amazed and amused Raffles. He pulled a wry face, and graced me with that trademark crooked grin of his. He let me know with his expression alone that the notion that had seemed natural to me would never have occurred to him in a hundred years. “What a noble thought that must be, Bunny!” 

I was duly embarrassed. “That’s all it is,” I asserted with a forced staunchness, “just a thought.”

“My dear rabbit, where are you going? Don’t retreat!” Raffles kindly relieved me with a hand thrown in my direction, beckoning me. I stopped in my tracks, and turned round to him. He had rolled up on to sit on the settee he had been lying lazily along, his features no longer smothered by his chosen magazine. Though he laughed, there was nothing offensive in his manner. “It’s those sorts of moral thoughts of yours that are all that’s left to keep me in check. I do value them. Yet I fancy your concerns are a trifle misplaced, even though I do say so myself. Of course, I make no excuse for the morality of the adventure we’re planning; I wouldn’t say Sir Christopher earned a visit from us, anymore than anyone else has. On the other hand, he’s not as hallowed as you seem to think. You see, it is all well and good for a man with an enormous house to himself—and a man who goes by ‘Sir’ and his Christian name, into the bargain—to be a law-abiding, conscientious citizen,” he remarked flippantly, “but it’s hardly a thing to admire. It’s very much the expected thing. It’s a prerequisite to a halfway adequate social standing.”

I almost laughed in my turn. It was a specious argument to make, even for Raffles. I couldn’t resist huffing good-naturedly, despite my embarrassment. I retorted, “Are you implying that a wealthy man can’t be admired for being decent? I daresay that’s not a popular opinion.”

Raffles was quick to the punch. “That doesn’t make it an incorrect one!” Petulantly, he spun about the wrong way on his seat, so that his legs were flung boyishly over the head of the settee. He stared up at our low ceiling for a moment, then closed his eyes and crossed his arms behind his head. “Who’s to say, for that matter, that Sir Christopher is as decent as everyone believes? I’ll be blowed if he isn’t hiding some wonderfully dark secret behind that pompous piety of his. When there’s exaggerated decency in high places, Bunny, it’s almost always a façade. Take my cricket, for example, or the temperance fad of our late friend, Lord Ernest. Good hearts don’t come cheaply.”

That was an even more specious argument than the last one. I still didn’t agree with him, though I regret to confess that his familiar sardonic attitude made me smile fondly. The matter was closed, however. Crime was crime, regardless of whose house we burgled. I wasn’t Sir Christopher’s neighbour or nephew. When the call to action sounded, I was Raffles’s man every day of the week.

Our dinner was, by contrast to what was to follow, starkly light and innocent. We talked of everything and anything but crime, or cricket. We enjoyed a rich meal, courtesy of our solicitous landlady, who we let know that we would be going out again this evening in chase of those infamous local thieves terrorizing the community. She praised our tenacity and bid us to stay safe. Once she had gone, I shut off the gaslight and lit several candles, merely on a whim. It was a sentimental gesture, and it earned me a forgiving and agreeable smile. His strong hand briefly stole into mine when I offered him a lighter and a cigarette of the one and only brand. 

We tarried long at the dining table. He was the brilliant centre of my attention for every minute. I was entranced by every line and curve of his strong form against the light. The wrist of the fingers that balanced his cigarette was bent loosely. His pose in his chair was lazily relaxed. The curls of his white hair bounced back on his head every time he laughed. His warm smile was a blanket of comfort and security. Of all the precious moments spent at his side, these private conversations and the quiet smoking afterwards were among the moments I loved best.

When we had finished, however, that calm, suffused light of unhurried affection in my partner’s steel blue eyes sharpened into the piercing rays of calculation and of anticipation. With a little reluctance, I looked at my pocket-watch, and it was true: the sweet hours had passed without my noticing, and it was already time for us to go.

We set out on our bicycles. We always dressed well whenever we went to business, and tonight was no exception. Our coat-tails, doubly black against the black of the night, waved in the wind behind us.

After that, everything went against reason from the moment we laid eyes on the street.

The road was lined with parked hansoms, with their lamps lit and their drivers waiting. It was a dozen or so sleepy cabs, all of which sat waiting outside Sir Christopher’s shadowed, unlit house.

Down the road from them, Raffles and I exchanged equally bewildered glances. “Could they be here for a different house?” I asked him.

“Which other house would that be?” Raffles half-joked in reply. Indeed, the relative solitude of the impressive property was one of the reasons why he had long ago selected this very abode as a choice target. He stepped off his bicycle, and was silent for a space of time. I had the electric torch with me, but we kept in total darkness while there were the drivers of the hansoms to be considered.

Eventually, my impatience got the better of me. I prodded my companion. “This is all wrong. We ought to leave.”

Raffles slowly held up a finger or two towards me, though he kept his attention forward. “Not so fast, Bunny,” he whispered. “I suspect there’s still some game to be had here.”

“Raffles, you can’t be serious. There’s probably a sort of house party going inside.”

“A house party where the rooms are unlit?” he asked. “Rather, I think that I can make out something of a glimmer coming from the back of the house. There’s something fascinating at work here, old chap. Whatever it is, at least it seems to be making the front half of the house fair game to us. Follow my lead. We’ll play the parts of two rather shy gentlemen guests, if we’re noticed. That’s a game we haven’t played in ages; I hope you’re not terribly averse to the job? I’m willing to risk that two more gentlemen won’t be turned away, if it is in fact a party—but if I give the signal, Bunny, then bail out of the place like your life depends on it!”

All this said, Raffles left his bicycle by the side of the road, where it would not be easily seen. I did the same. I also tried to leave with my bicycle all of my doubts about this spontaneous enterprise. My nerves and I didn’t like it. It seemed altogether a more risky venture than was Raffles’s wont. The Raffles I knew craved excitement, yet he prepared himself for the danger and preferred to have an escape route ready at every turn. He weaved contingency plans within contingency plans with such dexterity that I could hardly follow them, and usually I didn’t try to. Yet how could he have planned for us to find a street filled with hansoms, and the house apparently occupied? 

He couldn’t have anticipated these facts. Nevertheless, I put my faith in Raffles, and let myself rely on his quick resource and cunning. He deserved at least that much from me. In truth, I wanted him to see that I had this much faith in him. Therefore, I followed without contest into the mysterious manor. To keep my courage up, I had to remind myself that it was unlikely that anyone who lived this far out would recognize my officially deceased companion.

We strolled past the army of cabs, without a care by all appearances. In my mind each driver was a private soldier, armed and waiting with a spear pointed up to the stars, laying a heavy gaze on our guilty shoulders from behind the bulk of a ready chariot. In reality, I doubt if any of them was more than half-awake. Whatever purpose the hansoms were left to wait all night for, it wasn’t to keep intruders at bay.

Raffles locked arms with me. He led the way down the pavement and up the house’s drive. The lights of the cabs were plenty enough for us to make our way with, and to make us plain to anyone who looked at us. It was incredibly reckless, but Raffles might as well have been taking me to a charity ball, for all the energy and the panache his strong stride evinced. He neglected to have us change into hard-soled shoes, and I didn’t know if that was sensible or equally as reckless.

No one was there to meet us at the central door, which Raffles silently discovered was unlocked. “We can let ourselves in,” Raffles said, neither too loudly nor too softly. “That’s dashed welcoming of them, wouldn’t you say?” He opened the door, and with an overly chivalrous bow towards me, complete with a swipe of his right hand to the centre of his chest, bade me enter before him.

The hall was finely furnished, but deserted where we entered, and its dark loneliness made its already gratuitous size appear even larger. It was an extremely old house, in spite of its massive size. The present owner wasn’t successful in patching up every line and crack in the floor and the walls. The light from the hansoms that flowed in through the door at Raffles’s heel was greater than the glow of warm colours that trickled from somewhere deeper in the house, around a bending hallway. I became aware that there was also a muffled noise of distant chatter. 

Immediately my eyes went to the winding stairs that circled around a long, dripping chandelier. Upstairs, it would be short work to find something valuable in the best bedroom of the house, or in a dressing room, or in a study. We could be in and out before any restless wanderers of the party had a chance to roam the premises and cause us trouble.

But Raffles took little notice of those promising stairs. He walked in the wrong direction—down the hall, towards the party itself!

“Raffles!” I hissed. “What are you doing?”

“I’ll only be a minute, Bunny,” he murmured dreamily. “You go on up without me. I have to know what this peculiarity is all about.”

I had half a mind to do just that, and leave him while he took whatever asinine risk pleased him. It cannot be emphasized how running into the occupants of a house that we were supposed to be robbing was the worst possible outcome. However, his curiosity had got the better of him, and he was going. I remained loyally at his elbow.

He shut the door behind his, and together we felt our way in the darkness of the hall, to its ends. It was a very long hall. I followed Raffles around the bend. Our destination soon made itself obvious: a line of light underneath and overhead a single door singled it out. Raffles put his ear to the door’s hinge, and listened. By this time, the muffled chatter of the party had grown loud enough for me to distinguish many voices.

“They’re making quite a row in there, whatever it is,” Raffles observed thoughtfully. “Ah, what was that? Get back, Bunny!” 

We both darted back to the corner, in time to miss the door admit the exit of one old, bearded gentleman. The man’s attire and bearing were respectable, but his sluggish manners and dragging feet spoke of having become intoxicated hours ago. I noticed that he was holding a small rake in the same hand he had turned the knob with, about the length of his arm. He left the door ajar, while he slithered away into some further recess of the house, possibly the kitchen. Quite mechanically, I wondered if that slim rake of his, whatever its honest purpose was, would pose a threat if used as a club.

The noise that the old gentleman had released into the hall was pure chaos. There was shouting, and screaming, and laughing. Raffles and I both fell victim to curiosity, and leaned out to peer. From what little we could make out, it was a billiard room, filled with about as many people as there were cabs outside. There were men and women, and all of them either drinking or smoking intently, and apparently throwing themselves around the room or at one another. They wore expensive suits and dresses, though they were excessively flashy, and were mostly covered by gaudy jewellery.

It was a morbidly intriguing sight. I looked at Raffles, but to my great horror, Raffles wasn’t next to me any longer. He had risen from where we crouched. Hastily he donned his clouded spectacles, then marched forward—and then my stomach churned awfully as he walked straight right into that billiard room!

“I’m ready to make a fortune off the lot of you!” he announced to the members of the orgy, his arms akimbo, his accent stretched to sound a little less refined. “Where’s the pile?”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t watch. My pitiful face was in my hands. Either he was about to pull off one of the most amazing schemes of his life, or I would have to find a way to save him from the trouble he’d thrown himself into. From where I stayed hidden, like a sane man, I could only listen as the noise of the party dampened down about two-thirds in response to the intrusion of Raffles. Evidently, some of the individuals of the party were paying no notice to my ridiculous friend’s entrance. The others, on the other hand, made a show about it.

“You’ve just missed Sir Christopher! He’s gone to get more drink. You’ve come a hair too early,” a lady with an irritatingly high-pitched voice said. Her tone was fairly hospitable, though, to my surprise. “Or, a hair too late!” she laughed archly at her own unfunny joke.

“More like twenty years worth of hairs too late, old man!” a young man had the foolish temerity to say through a violent slurring of his words.

“I’ll never be too old to teach young bloods like you a lesson,” Raffles replied. “In fact, I’ll hand you one soundly right now. It’s only a shame the old boy won’t be here to see it. Well, roll your sleeve up; we’ll have it out right here, on the table!”

There was something of a din in the room. Some people protested, some encouraged, and some were merely thrilled by the superfluous excitement of Raffles’s challenge.

The young man must have divined that he couldn’t compete. He backed down. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean it in that way.”

Raffles graciously let the lad go. “Of course, I was sure you didn’t.”

“But you are a new face here, aren’t you?” the young man added, as if that would divert attention from himself.

A sharp laugh escaped Raffles. “No, but I’ll forgive you for thinking so, boy. You don’t remember my name, Deedes, do you? No, you don’t. You ought to be drinking less—and betting less, I’ll warrant!”

I quietly grimaced. His choice of pseudonym was in unusually poor taste. It was a lifetime ago, but I had no difficulty placing the name. Deedes was the disreputable title of the captain of the fifteen at the old school, a rascally pupil who had been expelled on account of being caught in the middle of some shady behaviour. Incidentally, as I recalled him, Deedes _major_ could have served as a great literary foil for Raffles, if I had ever had reason to write about them while I wrote for the school paper. Each of the two schoolboys was a type of charming rogue on the exterior, but on the inside, they differed drastically. Behind Raffles’s tough veneer was an aesthetic soul, and an honest kindness. Deedes, on the other hand, was really a brute. 

“Come now, he’s doing all right, tonight,” one lady, with that large voice characteristic of large women, said. “He made five bob on red that last roll, didn’t you, love?”

“He wasn’t so fortunate last month,” another man joked, “and the sum doesn’t total too well for him!” This one was less intoxicated, but had a heavily coarse roughness in his throat more fitting for a sailor than for a man-about-town. None of the party-goers was attractive in voice or demeanour.

There was much excited amusement and sympathy among the crowd. The young man made some little protest, in vain. I hardly understood what they were talking about, but the general message was clear; and, from my own personal experience with finding oneself at the losing end of a betting spree, I pitied him—except when I remembered that he must be in the funds enough to keep a hansom waiting for him in the suburban street outside.

Raffles dryly said something about the cruelty of fate. The willing assembly ate it up. A few more exchanges of pleasantries, and he was mingling with one and all like an old chum.

I slumped to the floor and let out a sweet sigh of relief. However, the relief was premature. I couldn’t make heads or tails of Raffles’s plan. The rest of the house was ripe for picking, and yet he was wilfully wasting our time with these upper class delinquents. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that Raffles had given up the original game completely in order to avail himself of the sordid revelry that we had stumbled upon. 

Possibly, I supposed, this foolhardiness was due to a longing of his to relive evenings past. It had been years since either of us had attended an upscale gathering. Though the indulgence of that billiard room was very different from the kind I had once been accustomed to, it was close enough. Tonight was likely to be the last chance for Raffles to ever socialize in coattails again. 

Yet it was hard to believe such an idea. Raffles might miss those extravagant, carefree dinners and games of pool passed in the company of prestigious young ladies and gentlemen, but he had made it clear to me before that it was a risk not worth taking. The days of faking it through a ball for the sake of a lady’s necklace were behind us. We had long ago taken the mantle of a more common kind of criminal. Moreover, as Raffles had once told me, even for the sake of a crime, why trouble oneself with the party downstairs when one hasn’t a public face to be concerned about protecting, and there are so many balconies and windows to be easily entered at night? 

“Everyone, everyone, your attention, if you may!” Raffles suddenly declared.

Up until the following moment, there had always been a commotion of chatter, clinks, and thuds. The billiard room was the one abundantly alive apartment in an otherwise dead house. Nevertheless, this liveliness came to a startling pause, at the splitting sound of glass shattering. 

“That’s better,” Raffles said, kicking aside the remains of the bottle he had smashed against a table. “Now, everyone, if you would do me a favour? I have brought a friend with me, but I see he hasn’t come in. He’s behaving like a shy blighter, and who can blame him? It’s his first time coming, you know.”

This was monstrous. I could have hit him.

“Quite right, I’ll go see where he’s hiding,” my friend went on, after a couple of listeners had spoken some nonsense about their own first times. “Meanwhile, I will go look for Sir Christopher; he’s taking his blessed time with the wine. Make a warm welcome for Beetle, will you?”

I glowered. The Beetle was the boy who had been Deedes’s fag at school. I couldn’t recall anything special about him, except for that association. I didn’t appreciate the reference, nor this abuse of the names of old schoolmates in general. The Raffles who was my long-time ally had always had the decency to invent entirely new names, or, occasionally, to borrow the names of old authors.

Raffles back-pedalled across the open threshold, and without any pretence about it, he turned to me. There was a strange, forbidding grin on his face. I was shocked to see that he had removed his tinted spectacles. The shadows of his eyes were as dark as the shadows of the corridor. “Keep them occupied a minute or two, will you?” he said to me. “I shan’t be long.”

Though I didn’t realize it immediately, his bewildering behaviour and demeanour were beginning to frighten me. I forced myself to stand up, and to face him. “A. J.!” I whispered, harshly. “This is madness! What is the meaning of this? Is it a trick?”

None of my anxieties were a concern to him. “Don’t you worry about that,” he said lowly, his cold mouth curved into the wry shape of a quarter-moon. Raffles made a laboured gesture of holding the door open. “Go on inside, and meet the nice people. Leave everything else to me.” 

“But what if someone recognizes me?” I pressed. “Or worse—what if someone recognizes _you_?”

His familiar grey eyes laughed at me, without friendliness or warmth. Those eyes, normally so beautifully animated and sharp, threw me a macabre and dull gaze. “Then you may tell them that I am a ghost,” he murmured frostily, his grin a pale, sarcastic parody of the playful, charming, affectionate smile that I loved.

A chill froze the rush in my veins. At last, I was aware of my own fright. Never mind that anyone else would recognize him; I couldn’t even recognize him. My daily companion had entered that billiard room, and a perfect stranger had come out of it to pull me in. Something was terribly wrong, but I couldn’t guess what it was. I struggled to gather my wits, and I softened my approach towards him. “A. J.,” I tried gently, “are you feeling all right?”

“What’s taking him, anyway?” The lady with the shrill voice came out into the hallway, and shook her head at me and my timidity. She was in a loudly yellow dress, and heels too tall for her short height. She was also obviously far younger than me, yet seemed to take me for her junior. “What a babe he must be! Need an extra push in, do you?” Meaning to be kind to me, she took me by the arm and escorted me inside.

The wash of excessive electric lighting struck my unadjusted eyes powerfully. I blinked away the brief daze. The room was filled with the smoke of their cigarettes. The room’s window was shut, so that the air of the place was nigh unbreathable. There were fresh wine stains in places upon the floor, and no one was caring about them. It was hard to understand why Sir Christopher would have gone to fetch wine, when there were already so many choices already in the room. Everywhere I looked there were empty bottles, or half-full ones, or perfectly unopened ones.

There were no balls or racks on the pool table that most of the guests were gathered around. Instead, there was a large roulette wheel, numbered to thirty-six. The numbers were coloured alternatively in crimson and black, except for the single green zero, upon which a single white ball sat ominously. Next to the wheel, each number from zero to thirty-six was drawn with white chalk into a makeshift board on the green of the table. Each number was boxed, and there was also a box for ‘red’ and for ‘black,’ for ‘lows’ and for ‘highs,’ and for ‘evens’ and for ‘odds.’ The chalked numbers were arranged into three columns, and each column had an extra box at its end. Besides for all of this, there was a stunning amount of gold and cash organized into heaps at the wheel’s end of the table. At the deserted end of the table were silver plates of bonbons, and pails of ice.

I turned my head round and stared at the man who was my dearest friend in the world. The changed form of Raffles watched me be carted off and thrown to the jeers and cheers of the other guests. I couldn’t understand his grotesque, sinister expression, the likes of which I had never before seen mar his fine-looking features. I wondered what could have possibly changed his spirit from that of Raffles into that of old Deedes. Then, he slowly shut the door.


	2. Escape

“Never gambled before, I take it?” one man with his hat still on said to me in a superior tone. “Then, my boy, you’ve been living under a rock. Probably never had a good time in your life.”

“I’ve done all right without it,” I dared to retort. Half of me was keen to make a point that gambling was a dangerous practice, a practice that had nearly been my ruin once; but the other half of me wished to keep in character as Raffles had asked me to, despite Raffles’s strange behaviour. I spoke in a manner vague enough to suit both ends.

The large lady threw a dainty hand at me, while she swirled her glass. “Cut loose, love! It’s an excitement fit for kings. So much better than biritch,” she added, “or baccarat!”

“Like a horse race that one needn’t wait days for,” the young man with the awful slurring agreed. “It keeps on going, and going, and the thrill never ends,” he said wildly, “for as long as the moon is shining, and the pockets are deep!”

I ventured to ask the glittering group how often they met for this sort of gathering, but they didn’t hear me. Instead they spoke about their improbable winnings of the evening, and what odds these various wins defied. A couple of them refilled their glasses to nearly their brims, and drank like the sun would never rise again. These scandalous people could have been as mad as Raffles; they thought of nothing but their drinks, their cigarettes, and their money.

But before I could move for the door, Raffles was already coming back through it. I experienced very mixed feelings about his return. His crooked expression was at once familiar and foreign. He hadn’t been gone very long, and he brought no one with him. I noticed that he had the old man’s rake in one hand. Under one arm of his was a heavy magnum of champagne. 

“It seems that Sir Christopher has chosen to sleep on the sofa,” Raffles said gallantly, in a sardonic tone that I didn’t trust at all. “Though not before he made a grab for this beauty!” He cut across the room and laid the magnum in an ice pail. “Age will do that to some fellows. The old fellow told me we could continue without him, before he dozed off. Here, I have his rake, and he gave me the house’s pot to use.” Unceremoniously, Raffles dumped a great pile of notes, coins, and gold from his pockets onto the green of the pool table. His pile instantly outclassed every other similar heap by a wide margin.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Raffles had probably put Sir Christopher out of action, then taken all these valuables from him, but hadn’t thought to run away with the goods? Such nonsense simply wasn’t to be thought of, yet there was the evidence before me.

The others were remarkably transformed by the announcement. They ceased to be sluggish, wandering, and unfocused. They leapt to the wheel like wolves on downed prey, barking out their bets and throwing money onto the chalked spaces. They were all talking at once, and I couldn’t follow any of them. Only a few of them went for any of the low-odds inside bets; the rest preferred the outside bets with the higher odds.

Raffles watched their spectacle with detached amusement. He might as well have thrown them raw meat, merely to watch them fight over it. His wintry smile chilled me to the bone.

“ _Rien ne va plus_ ,” Raffles intoned flatly, like a born croupier. The bets stopped coming down on the table, and everyone kept their mouths busy with their cigarettes while they observed the wheel. Raffles gave the face of the wheel a spin, and then launched the white ball in the opposite direction round its track. The ball circled half a dozen times, and rolled down onto a number.

The party exploded into action again. There were cries of excitement while Raffles calmly raked in his spoils due to him, and left the rest. There was teasing, both kind and unkind, but never very serious. One of the women impulsively hugged Raffles at his elbow, though she hardly looked at him. I, who was doing nothing at all, surely stood out like a calm sheep among the crazed flock.

I pushed my way to my friend’s side. “Deedes,” I said to Raffles. “These fumes must be having an effect on you. I’m feeling a little dizzy, too. Can’t we step outside for some fresh air?”

“Open a window, if you like,” he answered in sober monotone. He didn’t bother any further with me. His gaze was fixed on the bets and the little white ball. He continued to give his announcements and work the table.

Concern and worry nagged at me. I wasn’t sure what to do. By all appearances, Raffles did have the situation in the palm of his hand, and was apparently raking in a fortune; yet I knew that not all was well in his head. That roulette wheel had cast a spell on him, I thought. It had unearthed something dark in his nature. Either that, or the toxic air in the room really was to blame. At some point I did go to the window and did as he suggested, to let out the smoke. It didn’t make any difference.

“Cigars,” someone said. “Where are the rest of the cigars?”

“The box is empty,” another person answered. “We’ve run out.”

The complaint seemed to me a pale one, given the number of other amenities in the room, but Raffles had made himself into the accommodating host. “Have no fear,” Raffles said flatly. “There’s plenty more where that came from.” He slowly let down the rake, turned, and left the room, taking nothing with him except a small candle.

Knowing that my presence would not be missed, I quickly left the room, too, to quietly follow him. I meant to have a private word with him, but he didn’t see me come after him. I kept deliberately silent after that, and stayed a hallway apart from him. 

I still hadn’t a concrete plan, but I thought I would come up with something. There had to be some way for me to return my Raffles to his senses. In truth, I was eager for any excuse to pull me away from that horrible party.

He had left the billiard room’s door closed, and so did I, and yet he hadn’t noticed my opening it. The laughter and the light of the party were muffled behind us. He led me down the dark hall, and he might as well have known the way by heart. His candle was a weak force against the massive size of the black space that fought against it. We even passed the room housing the sofa where I caught sight of a form in repose along a sofa. I broke off from the trail for a moment to see what had become of Sir Christopher, and to my awkward relief I detected the smell of chloroform when I leaned in to check for the presence of his breath.

I returned to the hall, and saw Raffles go into what appeared to be an empty storeroom. There was a rug at the centre of its floor, a reflective black surface that showed the light of Raffles’s candle. This candle was set down while Raffles moved away the rug and opened the hidden trapdoor. He descended into an unseen cellar, and soon came up again, with a box of cigars.

I was staggered. He had been serious! He had really gone out of his way like this to fetch those godless people their cigars. I had expected something more, but no; it really was his game to feed the guests and fatten the house’s pot. Likely, he meant to take the pile when it was fat enough, and when the opportunity for escape was clear. 

Besides for that, though, I suddenly asked myself: how had Raffles known where the cigars were kept?

Raffles replaced the rug. He took up his candle and his box, and departed back the way he came. His stride was stiff and dragging, completely unlike his regular quick and nimble step.

I hid myself behind a pillar while he passed me by. I hesitated in my shadow. That party had sickened me, and I had no desire to go back to it. Moreover, though Raffles had turned cold, he was displaying a masterfulness in this job that I couldn’t find an argument against. There was definitely something wrong with him, but could I hope that his bitter coldness would only last as long as tonight?

Then, I heard a startling noise. 

It came from the storeroom’s central trapdoor. It was rising by itself, denting the rug covering it. I wouldn’t have seen it, except that there was a new light, coming from within the cellar and shooting past the edges of the rug. The trapdoor pushed up again, and the rug was forced away.

To my shock, two men who I had never seen before ascended from the cellar into the storeroom! One of them carried a light. They were covered in a thin layer of dirt, and moving as silently as I had been. They were young men, dressed decently, but with no finery, and certainly not for dinner. Unlike Raffles, they showed no signs of being familiar with the layout of the house. 

The one holding the candle followed the lead of his brave friend, and I trailed the two as they cut a random path through the house and out through a welcoming window. They shut the window behind them, and I stayed inside. Around the corner of the house, they disappeared from view, though my ear told me they had stopped to crouch nearby.

My head was spinning. Were these two men thieves, like us? They rather gave me the absurd impression of two lost tourists. Could they be of any help to me in understanding what had happened to Raffles, and the mad revellers? I wasn’t sure.

Eventually the two men reappeared in view, and disappeared again, going down the drive. 

I faced a choice: to return to a sinister Raffles and bite my tongue, or to go after the tourists and to learn what I could. The decision was easy. I escaped through the window and followed them at a distance. These two mysterious people, whom Raffles had failed to notice in the storeroom cellar, failed to notice me. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me. I should say that it was luck that made me so invisible that night, and yet it was so remarkable an invisibility I seemed to possess that night, one which I was never blessed with before or since. The two men went the same way as our bicycles, and it was a considerably good thing that we had concealed our telltale rides behind a fence. The men were silent, until all three of us were a fair distance away from the cabs, and then they spoke excitedly. One of the two men, the small and brave one, slipped his arm through that of his friend, a Scotchman.

I listened to their talk. Evidently, they had mistaken Raffles for Sir Christopher. They were as baffled by Sir Christopher’s lack of his famous piety as Raffles and I had been by the genuine article. 

I heard them make peculiar confessions, as well. The braver man confessed to having passed on a temptation to steal some lace and diamonds somewhere, while the other admitted to having suffered an urge to send Raffles to the devil. They had nearly been a thief and a murderer in that house, but clearly neither of these boys had the real makings of a criminal. 

"Then we're all three in the same boat, Gillon," the brave one declared. Though he was young, he had a look of illness about him. I thought his features bore a certain resemblance to those of Raffles. They might have been cousins, if not brothers.

His Scotch friend stood still. "Which three?"

"You, and I, and poor old Sir Christopher."

"Poor old hypocrite! Didn't I hear that his wife died a while ago?"

"Only last year. That makes it sound worse. But in reality it's an excuse, because of course he would fall a victim all the more easily."

"A victim to what?"

"My good Gillon, don't you see that he's up to the very same games on the very same spot as my ignoble kinsman a hundred and fifty years ago? Blood, liquor, and ladies as before! We admit that between us even you and I had the makings of a thief and a murderer while we were under that haunted roof. Don't you believe in influences?"

I caught my breath. Influences?

The man’s friend was doubtful, but his credulous companion persisted in the idea. I listened to them speak some more, including learning the name of Gillon’s associate, until I was sure that I had learnt all that I needed to know; and then I left them in the middle of their dialogue, and walked back to the terrible house that had ensnared my friend.

Influences! Now I began to get an idea of what sort of place we had picked to burgle. There was an evil presence haunting the house. I don’t consider myself to be superstitious, but I do believe that some houses have better feelings about them than others. What other explanation was there for the sudden spirit of cruelty that had apparently possessed these two curious lads, as well as my partner?

Finally, there was no doubt in my heart. I knew exactly what had to be done. 

By hook or by crook, I was getting Raffles out of that doomed house. There would be no pleasant way to force him off the premises, but it had to be done. Time alone would tell whether Raffles would forgive me for pulling him away from his game. 

Within ten minutes, I was in the corridor outside the billiard room once again. I took a deep breath, and entered. 

The party was in a worse mess than I had left it. The young man with the slur was reclining morosely on a sofa, defeated and forgotten by the rest; he was holding more whisky than was good for even a sober fellow. The magnum of champagne was wasted, broken in half and spilling out onto the green of the pool table by a crazed woman whose unusual beauty spoke of her career as an actress. She had hurt herself in smashing the bottle, yet didn’t care at all. Instead, she laughed and cursed at the grand sum that Raffles had evidently counted out for her.

Indignantly I pulled away the whisky from the morose young man, and wiped the blood from the maddened lady’s dress with a cloth, but neither took happy notice of me, and I quickly saw that my efforts were unappreciated.

Meanwhile, Raffles was still playing the croupier, a drunken woman at each arm, one of whom had stuck a sprig of little leaves in my friend’s white hair out of misplaced gratitude. The women were clearly of such little moment to Raffles that it was simple for me to ignore them. Raffles himself noticed my return, and I thought I saw a spark of the old blue fire rekindle in his eyes when they met mine; but immediately the fire froze over, and wordlessly his gaze slid back down to the wheel.

Deep within me, my sympathy reached out to him. Raffles was within an evil spirit’s deep grip. He needed me. Knowing this, I steeled my nerves for the sake of my plan. I bit my lip, cleared my throat, and made my move. Meanwhile, I schooled my face as best I could.

I came up behind Raffles, again ignoring the women, and whispered into his ear. “Deedes,” I said. “Take a little break.”

Raffles didn’t make any sign of reply. His deft fingers twirled the wheel, and sent the white ball flying. His crowd went horribly wild over the landing.

“A. J.,” I said with a very low voice, in what I hoped was a promising tone. “Come with me out to the hall.” I stroked the back of his neck with one finger. “I have something to show you,” I murmured, as playfully as possible.

How that got his attention! Raffles threw a wicked smirk over his shoulder at me. “My dear Beetle,” he chided in deadpan, “do you really suggest that I leave these good people without a host?”

“That depends,” I whispered, forcing out every traitorous word, and trying my best not to blush for myself. My finger trailed down his neck, to caress underneath his collar. “These people have had enough fun. Don’t you want to have a little fun yourself?”

Raffles’s eyebrows rose. 

This was painfully devilish of me. I was never going to hear the end of this, once my friend found his senses again. “Tell them you’ll only be gone five minutes,” I said, “or less. I won’t keep you too long.” I batted the eyelashes. “Think of it as a preface to what’s to come.”

As I expected, Raffles ate it up. “Five minutes,” he announced loudly, as if that were ample explanation to his herd; then, he shoved the women around him off like uncomfortable clothes, and tossed his rake onto the table. There were pathetic hisses and complaints from a few of the ladies and gentlemen. One of the ladies tried to pull Raffles back, only to be pushed unkindly away. The lot of them were readily abandoned, and forgotten.

The next moment, we were in the corridor and my back was to the billiard room door. Raffles was leaning over me, a powerful wave leaning over a struggling ship at sea. 

It was too dark to see one another distinctly, which was exactly what I wanted. 

Raffles’s breath brushed against my cheek. “What does my little rabbit have to show me?”

Briefly, I faltered. He had called me his rabbit, and in such a beautifully soft note. He had sounded a bit more like the man I admired and trusted, just then. I didn’t understand what that meant. In any case, I collected myself, and pressed on. It was imperative that I distract him. “Be nice and give me a kiss,” I teased, “and maybe I’ll be nice in return.”

I could see Raffles smile. His hands went underneath my jacket, to fondle the sides of my waistcoat. He bent his head down, brought his lips to mine, and kissed me hungrily. 

It was a dizzying embrace. At times rough, at times gentle, at all times Raffles could never get enough. His strong grip laid itself firmly on me like his life depended on it. I held his athletic biceps as I honestly poured my soul into returning his gesture. I did so because I had to bring more of him to the surface, in order for my plan to work. But besides for that, I wanted my beloved Raffles to be with me again, to pull him out of his darkness with the strength of my loyalty. I wanted him to feel that I was here to save him. When we parted for breath, my voice gave soft life to his name. 

Raffles hesitated. “Bunny,” he replied after the pause, with audible effort. Some of his coldness had grown warm again, but he wasn’t his old self, not completely. A morbid darkness was still wrapped around him. It seemed he was being pulled back and forth between his own will and that of this forsaken house. “What a pretty thing you are,” he added, too easily, sounding less like himself. “My one beloved. My only beloved, mine alone.”

I held back a pitying grimace.

The coldness was warring with the warmth inside him. Yet Raffles was oblivious to his own struggle. His lips savoured my cheek, while his large palms enjoyed my neck, and the soft underside of my jaw. “Bunny,” he whispered slowly, “let us die, and never part.” Briefly, he joined his lips to mine again, and groaned with desire. “Together, for the rest of time.” 

“What?” I staggered to reply. That affectionate, ghoulish sentiment of his startled me. It bore all the monstrosity of the house, and all the affection of my best friend.

“No more waking,” Raffles murmured, sweetly and ominously. “No more fearing.” He was at once warm and cold, an overwhelmed mixture of two duelling passions. He kissed affectionately next to my eye. “Nameless, endless,” his knee intertwined lightly between mine, “loving, sharing.”

The eerie sweetness of his grim, absurd desire melted my heart. I was soundly moved. Did he care so much for me? I wanted to say yes to his desire. I longed to give in. We could leave the rest of the world behind us, and I would be nothing but a part of him. That was what I always desired most in life, after all: to be always with Raffles, to share in his happiness and his sadness. Our fondness for each other, our confidence in one another, would sustain us. Everything I had to give would be his, forever. His restless energy called to me—

No! I shouted in my head. These weren’t my thoughts. They were the doing of the influences, and it was nigh time I put an end to them. My hands circled his chest carefully, searching for the object that would help me save the man who had so often saved me.

“Existing only in each other,” Raffles continued devotedly. Every romantic, disturbing syllable that he uttered hit me squarely in the chest. I adored him terribly, and his sweet words were honey in my ears. “Wrapped in love,” he tempted me, laying heavy emphasis on the right words, but then finishing with the wrong words, “and death, and darkness.”

My left hand came upon what I needed. I didn’t let the discovery show on my face. “Close your eyes, my love,” I said demurely, “and I’ll give you what I wanted to show you.”

A miniature struggle of the wills played out in his expression, between a wish to trust me and an urge to refute me. Eventually, to my relief, victory went to the former. “I will, for you,” he said at last, and he closed his eyes, leaving his head bowed to me. 

Thank goodness, this was my chance. Quietly, I drew the chloroformed rag that I had found inside one his jacket’s pockets. Then, quick as I could, I hooked an arm around his neck, and with a violent speed I thrust the rag onto his mouth. 

His eyes burst open in a fury. Riotous anger at my betrayal filled him. His reflexes were like lightning, but I had expected that, and I had already started speaking before I’d begun my assault.

“Raffles!” I cried. “Fight the darkness!” I managed to keep the wet cloth in place, and to resist the initial strength that he pushed against me. “Hold out, for just a minute! Fight it!”

Instantly, Raffles became rigid, and his muscles twitched all over. His struggle against me was but half in earnest. The power of his arms was drained. His hands, which moments ago had turned from possessive to violent, now gripped my limbs merely for to grip onto something. I was sure that I heard him breathe deeply on purpose. For a stretch of possibly a couple of minutes that felt like much longer, he simply looked at me while his body trembled. It was abominable to watch him fight himself. I could only murmur reassurances to him, telling him that everything was going to be all right, and that he only needed to trust me. 

Then, his eyelids fluttered; and then, he saw nothing. He collapsed into my arms, and I lowered his form onto the floor. 

I sighed. After that struggle, I had a small inclination to collapse myself. I was exhausted. However, there was no time to waste. Though I couldn’t move the heavier Raffles alone, I was determined to remove him from the house at any cost. If only I’d had that old bath-chair to cart him off in! Alas, I would need help to carry Raffles away. Before I had diverted Raffles from the billiard room, the plan had been to convince one of the revellers to assist me; sometime since then, I had realized that there were much better options available outside.

I gave one of the cabmen a shilling to leave his post and help me carry Raffles down the drive, further down the road, far beyond even our bicycles, which I feared were dangerously close to the estate. The driver asked no questions, and I let him think what he chose to. I gave him an extra shilling for his silence, to be safe. 

Once Raffles was far from the house and sleeping along a patch of grass underneath the cloudless, star-speckled midnight sky, I fetched both bicycles and parked them nearby. I sat with him on the road, and waited, letting the sky turn above us until he came alive again. I could only hope that I was correct, and that the corrupting influences of the roulette and of that forsaken house wouldn’t reach him from here.

For fifteen or twenty minutes, I waited in anxiety to see if my hope was realized. 

During this wait, I came into thinking about the strange yet romantic things that Raffles had said. I learnt afterwards that Raffles had been quoting lines from a German opera, though I didn’t know it at the time. That night, I only knew that his poetic want for closeness had affected me deeply. It was some aspect of my own devoted partner who had regaled me pleasantly in that unpleasant corridor. The thick texture of his voice had been enticing, and cloying. I ached to recall how he had beseeched me to never leave him, through life and death. Captured as he was under the veil of a wicked curse, he had preached his want of an intimacy deeper than friendship, and deeper also than carnal love.

I smiled a little to myself. The odes to love and death from his lips weren’t anything that a sane Raffles would have said, and yet they stayed with me. They swirled in my breast, as reassuring and soothing as a mother’s lullabies. Of course, I had long ago decided to throw my lot in with him until the very end. He alone had cared for me, when my demise seemed most inevitable. From the beginning, he had shared his arm with me. Nowadays, he shared everything with me. Truth be told, it was a splendid delight to live with him in such a private manner, untouched by relatives and marriages and society. We were alone, exiled—existing only in each other, it might be said. 

Often I was aware of how much I needed him. As his earnest, half-sinister, half-gentle face of earlier painted the back of my closed lids again, it occurred to me that there was something else that I ought to be more aware of: no one in this world needed me, as he needed me. 

“Bunny,” Raffles groaned abruptly, “mine own familiar friend!”

I was startled sharply from my daydream. Thrilled into reality once more, I turned round and saw him sitting upright, rubbing his forehead, and averting his gaze from the direction of the hansoms and the house. Suddenly, I feared the worst; I shined the electric torch at his face, and was passionately glad to see only friendly annoyance greet me in reply.

“A. J., you’re all right!” I exclaimed. Whereas I had been as heavy as a brick, I now felt as light as a feather. “Thank goodness!” 

“We have very different definitions of what it means to be all right!” Raffles retorted. He made an irritated gesture with one hand, bidding me to turn off the torch, which I did. “You’ve made an impressive blow on me,” he said. “I will have this wretched dizzy spell until morning.”

“I’m sorry,” I started to say, except he cut me off. He crossed his arms loosely around his slightly bent legs where he sat beside me, and we were studied the dark road in front of us as he spoke.

“Hush, there’s nothing to apologize for. You might not credit it, Bunny, but I don’t think I was entirely of sound mind from the moment I laid foot in that ancient abode. That roulette wheel, crowded by the whole local lot of sinners smoking up a storm, was a fascinating sight. I’ll own it had a bad effect on me. It made me forget the real contest. I must have thought to profit from the house’s winnings eventually, but it was a stunt not worth the risk, and you were right to pull me out before Sir Christopher could ever find himself and come wandering back in. Besides, there’s no sport in winning off the house advantage, like some bookmaker or a vulgar gambling house. It’s an ugly business.” His arms fell back behind him, and he reclined. Bright stars were reflected in his eyes. “I wouldn’t go back into that devilish house for any price. It’s only a shame that we’ve come off without a thing, after all that!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I said softly.

The sportsman sitting next to me gave me a curious glance.

Surreptitiously, I produced a fold of deteriorated lace, stained with ancient dried blood, that I had kept concealed in my coat. I smoothed out and unwrapped the lace, to better permit Raffles to see the scintillating diamond buckle that was nestled inside.

Raffles was, for the moment, too stunned for words. A heady pride surged through me when I heard him gasp aloud. For once, it was I who had come away with the goods, and he who had walked away empty-handed.

“You missed them, but there were two boys in the house,” I had the great privilege to explain. “They were two honest young men, who got to the cellar from a secret tunnel that they must have stumbled upon by accident. Of course, they made their escape as soon as they tumbled to the truth of what they’d done; but I left the house to follow them, and I overheard one of them mention having seen lace and diamonds in the cellar. The first thing I did when I returned to the house was to go search for the things. It wasn’t too hard to find them; they were in a recess behind a wooden panel, in a wall in the cellar.”

A wonderfully ecstatic grin was the beautiful reward for my efforts. Raffles rolled up onto his feet to inspect the diamond buckle and the lace, detail by detail. It was a rascally grin to the upmost that he wore, yet fond and admiring as well. “Bunny,” he said, “you are a marvel!”

I blushed. His enthusiastic praise was sweeter than sugar. I don’t know if Raffles could discern that I had pinched the lace and diamonds for his sake. To make him happy, and to appease him for my betrayal with the chloroform, I had stolen a priceless antique that the tourists were convinced were unknown to the current owner, and thus not to be missed. By priceless item, I mean the diamond buckle; I doubted the fraying old lace that contained the prize would be of much value. It wasn’t until much later that Raffles would inform me that the lace was actually the more valuable piece of the two.

A very welcome hand clapped my shoulder. “Very well done. There are two questions I must ask, however. These boys of yours—did they see you? And where did they depart to?”

I wondered if he meant to ask if I knew the whereabouts of the secret tunnel’s entrance. Indeed, I had overheard the young men enough to be aware that the tunnel’s end was in one of their backyards. I neglected to mention this. “No, I don’t believe they ever noticed me. I left them in front of a small house at the edge of Witching Hill, where one of them lives.”

“Witching Hill?” Raffles asked, smirking. “What is that?”

“The name of the hill this whole estate is on,” I said. “I heard Delavoye call it that.”

“My dear chap, who is he?”

“Gillon’s friend,” I answered, then felt silly for saying so. “One of the two boys,” I clarified. 

Charmed gaiety coloured Raffles’s laugh. “You speak their names as if they were colleagues! You’ve had quite a night of it, Bunny, haven’t you?”

I shrugged. “So have you.”

“Ah, possibly.” His neck tilted lazily. “Witching Hill, Witching Hill,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Yes, it’s a very apt title.”

A brief silence settled. 

Again the charm of the memories of his dark poetry seized me. There were too dear to me to go unacknowledged and forgotten. I leaned closer to him. “A. J.?”

As before when I had distracted him in the billiard pool room, his attention came right to me. “Yes?” He was anxious, too, which surprised me. Had he divined what I was thinking of? Was he embarrassed by the beautiful emotions that he had tried to share with me? They were fine by me.

Nervously I licked my lips. Then, from where we were on the grass, I hugged him firmly around the smooth clothes covering his lean, strong body. With my head bowed to his clavicle, and ardent gravity in my voice, I whispered, “I love you.”

There wasn’t a sound of answer. I endured the torment of a few long and uneventful seconds. Soon, however, there was the mild, warming press of hand on my back, followed after a pause by another. 

Once I had the bravery to do it, I glanced up to his face. Intelligent blue eyes sparkled with pleasure; an unscrupulous mouth curved kindly; a long nose crinkled sentimentally at its bridge. In my arms, Raffles, former cricketer and perpetual criminal, was happiness itself.

End.


End file.
